Savannah's new reservoir to cost $300,000 annually

Thursday

May 10, 2018 at 5:52 PMMay 11, 2018 at 7:16 AM

Mary Landers @MaryLandersSMN

The City of Savannah is preparing to take ownership of a new reservoir built and funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in connection with the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project. Savannah will be footing the $300,000 a year operations and maintenance bill.

The Corps of Engineers built the $43.5 million, 100-millon gallon reservoir at the urging of city water officials as a solution to potential drinking water issues that could result from the deepening of the Savannah Harbor. The reservoir gives Savannah added assurance that its water customers will always have access to fresh water, said Chief Infrastructure and Development Officer Heath Lloyd.

“The Corps is deepening the channel of the harbor by approximately five feet and an extreme high spring tide could push salt water closer to our intake and if that salt water gets into our system then technically we have no way to treat it," he said. "The reservoir creates a pool of water, approximately 100 million gallons, so if we were to have one of these extreme high tide events, we would be able to pull from that reservoir during the high tide event and not pull salt water into our distribution system.”

But while federal and state dollars built the reservoir, the annual maintenance and operation bill, now estimated at $300,000 will be city funded. And because water and sewer services in Savannah are self-funded, that means anyone who gets a water bill will be paying to keep the reservoir operating.

About a month ago, Lloyd estimated the cost would be $500,000 a year. City spokeswoman Michelle Gavin offered no explanation for the 40 percent reduction. She said water bills may be affected.

"Potentially, but it will not be significant," she wrote in an email.

Savannah began advocating for some kind of drinking water mitigation in connection with harbor deepening as early as 1998. City water officials made their case pointedly in 16 pages of comments to the corps on the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project's 2010 environmental impact statement, which made scant mention of the issue. Elected officials chastised staffers for publicly criticizing the harbor deepening project, but the corps ultimately heeded the call for mitigation. Instead of a planned post-deepening monitoring program to evaluate the need for a 16-mile pipeline and water intake structure estimated to cost $40 million, the corps agreed upfront to the reservoir, which was initially expected to cost $30 million.

Savannah expects to take ownership of the reservoir by late summer.

“The City of Savannah is very much a part of everything that happens in this region, we want to be a partner, so in a partnership we understand that the Georgia Ports Authority is trying to get more cargo into the port, so it may seem that the city is taking on added responsibility, but it is important for this region that we support this project,” Lloyd said.

The water for the reservoir flows from the Abercorn Creek, a tributary of the Savannah River. The reservoir, which is about the size of Forsyth Park, is located near I-95 and Highway 21, approximately four miles north of Savannah's water treatment facility.

“The water is flowing through the reservoir today, and it will continue to flow,” Lloyd said. “The 100-million-gallon reservoir is constantly being replenished with fresh water so if we had an event, although I hope we never will, that water is immediately available to us.”